Dialog announces succession by year end

Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya (left) and Supun Weerasinghe

Dialog Axiata PLC (Dialog), Sri Lanka’s premier connectivity provider, yesterday announced that the company had commenced preparation for the succession of its Group Chief Executive at year end 2016. 



The move follows Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, the Group Chief Executive of Dialog, taking on additional regional responsibilities in the capacity of the Regional CEO for South Asia of the Axiata Group, earlier this year. 

The Dialog Board of Directors in consultation with the Board Nomination and Remuneration Committee had resolved to name Supun Weerasinghe as the successor to Dr Hans Wijayasuriya with effect from 1st January 2017.

Going forward post succession, Dr Wijayasuriya will continue to serve on the Board of Directors of the Dialog Axiata Group in line with his role as the Regional CEO for South Asia encompassing Axiata Group’s operations and investment interests in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. 

Dr. Wijayasuriya has been Dialog CEO since 1997 and in the Board since January 2001 in a career in the Company spanning just over two decades.

The succession announcement by Dialog marks the commencement of the penultimate phase of a succession program planned and executed over the past several years centred on the Accelerated Leadership Development Program of the Axiata Group.

Supun Weerasinghe joined the Dialog Group in 1999 and occupied several management positions in the Group prior to being appointed to the position of Dialog’s Group Chief Operating Officer in 2010. In the Year 2013, Weerasinghe was seconded to the Axiata Corporate Center in Kuala Lumpur, to take up an assignment as the Chief Strategy Officer of the Axiata Group as part of his accelerated leadership development journey. Subsequently In 2014, he was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Robi Axiata in Bangladesh, the country’s No 2 mobile player supporting 28 million subscribers, - a position he holds to date.

Weerasinghe will return to Dialog’s Leadership team in the 4th Quarter of 2016 in the capacity of the Group’s Deputy Chief Executive and CEO designate, leading up to the completion of succession by year end. Weerasinghe is a fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants UK, and holds an MBA from the University of Western Sydney Australia. Weerasinghe is a graduate of the University of Sri Jayawardenepura and an alumnus of the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. Weerasinghe was recently honoured as one of Sri Lanka’s Ten Outstanding Young Professionals (TOYP) by the Junior Chamber International (JCI) Sri Lanka.